we gather that Saint Hugh was a prince’s son,[407] deeply in love with a saintly coquette called Winifred. Having been jilted by this lady in a very pious manner, he went travelling, resisted the temptations of Venice,[408] like another St Anthony, passed through numberless adventures, compared to which those of Baron Munchausen sink into insignificance, and was finally, by a jumble of most amusing anachronism, martyred in the reign of Diocletian, by being made to drink a cup of the blood of his lady-love, mixed with “cold poison,” after which, his body was hung on the gallows. But among other misfortunes in his travels, he had been shipwrecked and lost all his wealth, so that he had to choose a profession, which was that of shoemaker, and so well he liked his fellow-workmen that, having nothing else to give, he bequeathed his bones to them. After they had been “well picked by the birds,” some shoemakers took them from the gallows, and made them into tools, and hence their tools were named St Hugh’s Bones. They are specified in the following rhyme, which appears to have been the shoemakers’ shibboleth:—
“My friends, I pray, you listen to me,
And mark what Saint Hugh’s Bones shall be:
First a Drawer and a Dresser,
Two Wedges, a more and a lesser.
A pretty Block, Three Inches high,
In fashion squared like a die;
Which shall be called by proper name
A Heelblock, ah! the very same;
A Handleather and a Thumbleather likewise,
To put on Shooe-thread we must devise;
[283] The Needle and the Thimble shall not be left alone,
The Pinchers, the Pricking Awl, and Rubbing Stone;
The Awl, Steel and Jacks, the Sowing Hairs beside,
The Stirrop holding fast, while we sow the Cow hide;
The Whetstone, the Stopping Stick, and the Paring Knife,
All this does belong to a Journeyman’s Life:
Our Apron is the shrine to wrap these Bones in,
Thus shroud we S. Hugh’s Bones in a gentle lamb’s skin.
“Now you good Yeomen of the Gentle Craft,” the story goes on, “tell me (quoth he) how like you this? As well (replied they) as Saint George does of his horse: for as long as we can see him fight the Dragon, we will never part with this poesie. And it shall be concluded, That what journeyman soever he be hereafter that cannot handle his Sword and Buckler, his long Sword and Quarterstaff, sound the Trumpet, or play upon the Flute, or bear his part in a Three Man’s song, and readily reckon up his Tools in Rhime, (except he have borne colours in the Field, being a Lieutenant, a Sergeant or Corporal,) shall forfeit and pay a Bottle of Wine, or be counted a Colt; to which they answered all viva voce, Content, Content. And then, after many merry songs, they departed. And never after did they travel without these tools on their backs, which ever since have been called Saint Hugh’s Bones.”
Bishop Blaze, or Blaize, otherwise St Blasius, is another patron of a trade to be met with on the signboard. This worthy, Bishop of Sebaste, in Cappadocia, is considered the patron of woolcombers, whence the sign is very common in the clothing districts. He is represented with the instrument of his martyrdom in his hands, an iron comb, with which the flesh was torn from his body in 289; from this implement has been attributed to him the invention of woolcombing. His holiday is celebrated every seventh year by a procession and feast of the masters and workmen of the woollen manufactories in Yorkshire and Bedfordshire; in sheep-shearing festivals, also, a representation of him used to be introduced; a stripling in habiliments of wool was seated on a milk-white steed, with a lamb in his lap, the horse, the youthful bishop, and the lamb all covered with a profusion of ribbons and flowers.
St Julian, the patron of travellers, wandering minstrels, boatmen, &c., was a very common inn sign, because he was supposed to provide good lodgings for such persons. Hence two Saint Julian’s crosses, in saltier, are in chief of the innholders’ arms, and the old motto was:—“When I was harbourless ye lodged me.” This benevolent attention to travellers procured him the epithet of “the good herbergeor,” and in France “bon herbet.” His legend in a MS., Bodleian, 1596, fol. 4, alludes to this:—
“Therfore yet to this day, thei that over lond wende,
They biddeth Seint Julian, anon, that gode herborw he hem sende,
And Seint Julianes Pater Noster ofte seggeth also
For his faders soule and his moderes that he hem bring therto.”
And in “Le dit des Heureux,” an old French fabliau:—
“Tu as dit la patenotre
Saint Julian à cest matin,
Soit en Roumans, soit en Latin,
Or tu seras bien ostilé.”[409]
In mediæval French, L’hotel Saint Julien was synonymous with good cheer.